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Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Valentine Countdown Blitz Day 8: Duchess by Nikki Wilson

Writes whatever strikes her fancy: Contemporary Romance, YA fantasy, Picture Books, Non-Fiction, blog posts and anything else that requires pen and paper. She works at an elementary school as a reading tutor teaching children to love reading as much as she does. She’s married to a wonderful man and her four greatest accomplishments expect her to cook them dinner and tuck them in at night.

Katie Murphy is the manager of overnight pop sensation, Duchess, whose biggest gimmick is that no one knows her true identity. Katie’s job is to keep this secret no matter the cost. When Duchess agrees to perform in a benefit concert for wounded veterans, Katie gets more than she bargained for when she meets Chase.

Carter Chase went from being a soldier in the Army to volunteering at Veterans’ Aid. The charity helped him through a dark time and he would do anything for them, including help plan a benefit concert. But when he finds out the main act is Duchess, the British pop diva who makes fun of America, he is ready to bail out—until he meets Duchess’s manager, Katie Murphy.

As they work together, Chase soon becomes a risk to Duchess’s true identity . . . and also to Katie’s heart.

“Du-chess!
Du-chess! Du-chess!” The chanting washed over her like a warm
wave. The adulation of the audience enthralled her in a way nothing else ever
could.

After
taking a swig of water, she patted her perspiring brow with a towel, careful
not to scrub off her makeup or disturb the wig. The tall, white-powdered
monstrosity sat atop her head like soft-serve ice cream balancing precariously
on a cone. To say it was awkward was an understatement of epic proportions. The
platform shoes and big, bulky dress were no picnic either, but Duchess knew
what the people wanted, and she would go to any lengths to give it to them.

She
had to—a life depended on it.

Plastering
on a smile, Duchess waited for the fog machines to send out misty fingers and
then swept onto the stage for her encore.

“Dahlings,
dahlings, dahlings! Your Duchess is back!” The lights of the stage, the smell
of the fog, and the screaming of the fans lit something inside her every time.
Duchess basked in the glow. “Are you ready to dance?”

The
response was deafening, and she fed off the energy. She waited for the fog to
mask the wires attached to the hidden belt inside her dress. As the first few
notes of her new single floated from the back of the stage out to the screaming
audience, a real smile lifted the corner of her mouth. This was her audience,
and they were under her spell.

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